Zerohedge reports that in a surprise announcement, Republican Rep. Mike Conaway – who has been overseeing the committee’s probe into whether or not Trump and his associates colluded with Russia – said that the committee is closing its probe with the conclusion that there was no collusion, as President Trump has insisted all along:

Conaway made the announcement during an interview with Fox News, noting that the committee will interview no more witnesses and Republicans are in the process of preparing a final report.

A draft of that roughly 150-page report will be delivered to committee Democrats for review on Tuesday.

“We have found no evidence of collusion, coordination, or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians,” Conway said.

Furthermore, after an investigation that lasted more than a year, the committee came to the conclusion that the intelligence community’s assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin had a “supposed preference” for then-candidate Trump isn’t accurate.

“The report’s completion will signify the closure of one chapter in the Committee’s robust oversight of the threat posed by Moscow—which began well before the investigation and will continue thereafter,” Conaway said.

According to the Associated Press, lawmakers spent hundreds of hours reviewing documents to support their contention that the US intelligence community was wrong.

According to Conaway, the report will agree with the intelligence assessment on most details, including that Russians did meddle in the election. It will detail Russian cyberattacks on U.S. institutions during the election and the use of social media to sow discord.

It will also show a pattern of Russian attacks on European allies – information that could be redacted in the final report. It will blame officials in former President Barack Obama’s administration for a “lackluster” response and look at leaks from the intelligence community to the media.

The report is expected to deflect attention away from Trump and toward the Clinton Campaign, which had its fair share of shady dealings with the Russians. The draft report included 40 other findings, including how Russians used social media to “sow discord” in 2015 and 2016, a “lackluster” pre-election response to Russian measures, how “anti-Trump research” made its way from Russian sources to the Clinton campaign, and “problematic contacts between senior Intelligence Community officials and the media.”

It will include at least 25 recommendations, including how to improve election security, respond to cyberattacks and improve counterintelligence.

A committee source told Fox News that the “investigation” portion of the probe was complete, meaning the committee would not interview any additional witnesses as part of its effort.

“I’m sure [committee Democrats] will disagree with bringing the interview phase to a close,” Conaway told Fox News. “I’m sure they will have specific folks they wanted to interview.”

Republicans on the committee wanted to interview former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, but Schiff “wanted to delay us,” Conaway said. Once Manafort was indicted in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, the committee decided not to call him for an interview, per the Associated Press.

“We found no evidence of collusion,” Conaway told reporters Monday, suggesting that those who believe there was are reading too many spy novels.

“We found perhaps some bad judgment, inappropriate meetings, inappropriate judgment in taking meetings. But only Tom Clancy or Vince Flynn or someone else like that could take this series of inadvertent contacts with each other, or meetings or whatever, and weave that into sort of a fiction page turner, spy thriller.”

The public will not see the report until Democrats have reviewed it and the intelligence community has decided what information can become public, a process that could take weeks. Democrats are expected to issue a separate report with much different conclusions.

Conaway also said that he did not “anticipate” pursuing contempt proceedings against former Trump campaign manager Steve Bannon or any other witnesses who did not respond favorably to the committee’s questioning.

To be sure, there are two more Congressional committee investigations, each pursuing evidence into Trump and his associates’ relationships with Russian entities.

Conaway took the reins of the probe in April after House Intel Chairman Devin Nunes stepped down amid accusations of making “unauthorized disclosures of classified information, in violation of House Rules, law regulations, or other standards of conduct,” according to the House Ethics Committee which investigated the allegations.

Republican House Intel Chair Devin Nunes thanked Conaway and other lawmakers for leading the investigation.

“After more than a year, the committee has finished its Russia investigation and will now work on completing our report. I’d like to thank Congressmen Trey Gowdy, Tom Rooney, and especially Mike Conaway for the excellent job they’ve done leading this investigation,” Nunes said in a statement.

“I’d also like to recognize the hard work undertaken by our other committee members as well as our staff. Once the committee’s final report is issued, we hope our findings and recommendations will be useful for improving security and integrity for the 2018 midterm elections.”

Meanwhile Zerohedge reports that in a development bound to further infuriate Democrats, Republicans on the committee have expanded their investigation of the Trump dossier, seeking answers from a former staffer for Joe Biden and other Obama administration officials. Nunes sent a questionnaire to a former Biden staffer, whose husband worked for Fusion GPS, the firm behind the dossier, seeking answers to when the administration was made aware of the dossier.